Dolly's cloning revolution fails to materialise

WERE she still with us, the most famous sheep in history would doubtless celebrate her 10th birthday on 5 July by posing for the world's media and gobbling down a celebratory cake of barley and molasses. Dolly the cloned sheep seemed to know she was special and, unlike her creators, loved being centre stage.

"It was fortunate for us that Dolly was such a media star," says Ian Wilmut, who headed the group at the Roslin Institute in Midlothian, UK, that created her. "In a biological sense we realised the enormity of what we achieved. What I didn't anticipate was the enormous interest that followed."

Dolly died in February 2003, but her iconic status as the first mammal cloned from a specialised adult cell lives on. Yet 10 years after her euphoric birth, the hopes, and fears, that cloning would spark a revolution in biotechnology, animal breeding and human medicine ...

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